Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., is a great believer in the value
of public service.

So much so, in fact, that he wrote a book, In Praise of Public
Service: A Response to Its Critics, to urge Americans at least
to vote, if not to work actively in the public sector.

As part of a tour to promote the book, Lieberman spoke Wednesday
at the Konover Auditorium in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center
in a session - and booksigning - sponsored by the UConn Coop.

"The book is my attempt to respond to the growing cynicism and
disengagement of more and more people from the political system,"
he said. "I'm trying to get people to re-engage and to get some
of you to catch the spark from the idea that you can make a
difference to get involved."

Lieberman noted a "disconcerting and stunning" drop in the percent
of Americans who vote - less than 50 percent in the presidential
election in 1996, the lowest since 1924 - and just over a third
of eligible voters in the 1998 congressional election, the lowest
since 1942.

"Two-thirds of Americans in the last election didn't have enough
engagement in the system to come out and vote," he said. "That's
a disconcerting sign for those of us who say this is the greatest
democracy in the world."

He said he asked a recent group of interns if they think about
going into public life after they graduate. A number of them
do, but they say hardly any of their friends at college even
talk about it.

"They see that politics has gotten so nasty, so partisan and
that people don't have a private life," Lieberman said. He added
that students today are generally more community-oriented than
they were 10 or 20 years ago, noting that they are more interested
in such professions as teaching.

"Not everyone wants to make a trillion dollars in the 'dot.com'
industry," he said.

Lieberman said it is up to the people within the political system
to draw Americans back into greater participation.

"Politics is now much too partisan," he said. "That can be healthy
because the two-party system is the way we bring minorities
together to form a majority. I spent 10 years in the Connecticut
legislature. There were good Democrats and good Republicans,
but most of the time we worked together across party lines."

Washingtonians, he said, tend to put representatives on the
"Red Team" or the "Blue Team" even though they were elected
by voters from both parties as well as independents.

"Too much of it seems to be posturing for party purposes," Lieberman
said. "We have to break through this. We have to compromise
to get things done. If not, people have less confidence in government.
There's too much nastiness in politics."

That negative approach has shown up in the presidential primary
campaigns of both parties this spring, he noted.

"If Kmart spent all of its advertising money criticizing Wal-Mart,
and Wal-Mart spent all of its money criticizing Kmart, few people
would want to shop at either store," Liberman said, drawing
an analogy with the business world.

He said that despite partisanship and name-calling in Washington,
Congress is still able to craft bipartisan agreements with President
Clinton, citing welfare reform and the balanced budget as two
examples.

Citing his own "outsider, newcomer" surprise election to the
Connecticut Senate in 1970 and his upset of incumbent Sen. Lowell
Weicker in 1988, Lieberman said the American political system
remains "remarkably open."

"The John McCain campaign should give people hope about the
openness of the system," he said.

Even though George W. Bush had been supported by almost 40 Republican
Senators and McCain by only four, "that all turned around in
New Hampshire," where McCain won by 19 percentage points, Lieberman
said.

"He had a message about his own life story and a surprising
number of people responded to it, and his campaign took on a
whole new dimension. I present that as evidence that it can
still happen."

Lieberman said Americans today are a "blessed generation," but
that should not be taken for granted.

"There's never been a generation more free, more successful
and more secure," he said. "But that can slip away."